“Fifteen, Lady. You’re good.”
Delilah pulled her paintings in as Caleb put the car in gear.
“Lily will like this one. Bright colours, like her make up last season.” Delilah’s brow furrowed. She slipped a strand of hair under the scarf and opened a paper fan she’d bought off a teenaged street seller, a girl who hadn’t found her footing. Delilah overpaid, pressing the Cedis into the girl’s hand with a number for a seamstress’ shop in East Legon, who hired new girls to work the cloth. Most of Delilah's dresses came from the seamstress’ shop, cheaper by far when Delilah brought the fabric and designs and paid a fair wage.
“Wanna stop in Accra for the night, or push on to Kumasi?” Caleb asked.
“Get me out of the city, drive us into the wild!” Delilah kicked off her sandals and pulled her feet to the dash. The burbling drone of conversations, music and traffic died off to the tires on asphalt and the wave of palm trees wafting inland. Caleb grinned, turning from the Movenpic hotel and onto the hazardous freeway for a four-to-eight hour drive upland.
The night sky glistened with constellations the Scandinavian man found hard to recognize in the northern haunts of the world. Taken by city lights and street signs, the constellations of the North were a secret known only to city wide power outages or camping far enough out. The drive spread out beyond them.
Caleb set the Land Rover on the side of the road and hopped up onto the engine’s hot lid to feel its’ warmth and watch the skies. Delilah sat curled up in the passenger seat cuddled in a long, thick scarf she’d bought to make into a skirt, or shirt, or jacket for her daughter. Lily didn't mind that everything she got her mother used first, no, the teen didn’t mind at all. It made them closer, in Delilah’s mind, that she could hand down everything the girl ought to love and be. Caleb had stared at the tree line. Lily. How old was the girl now? Eleven? Eight? Lilith still didn’t sound right.
Lyra and the milky way perused by the planet’s eye with an unlit majesty to the pitch black area around the car. Caleb brought out his smartphone and clicked into the photo album, calling up pictures of the Hebridean skin.
“Are you worth the trouble? Am I on a wild chase throug… fuck I’m in Africa for the Lord’s sake!” The picture refused to remain clear. Covered in the pixelation of the digital image, the light surrounding the LED screen refused to be stable. Always a fluctuation to keep Caleb from seeing the sign in its’ completion. It its’ infamy.
“Why are you keeping this from me!?” Caleb yelled into the night. Silence crept in to the jungle on either side of the thin highway, docile but for the Land Rover’s presence on the side of the road.
“I need an answer. My Dad. He lives. He goes to heaven. He’s pious, he’s followed your rules. You have to let him in the gate. Come on… talk to me!” Caleb threw a balled up receipt from his pocket into the air, and watched it hit the earth with a dull thud. There was no answer but the soothing silence of the stars, and a rumination in his heart that Caleb Mauthisen hadn’t yet done anything worth damnation.
Inside the car, Delilah quivered.
“Caleb? We have a place for the night, no? Caleb? Where are you?” She spoke in her native Romani, daughter of a house she wouldn’t fess up to owning. Caleb turned to look at her, the tired princess on her throne of self made wares, and pitied the men caught in her sensual web.
“We have a place. Go back to sleep, Delilah.” He answered in Romani. The place was the stars, waiting until tomorrow to find the right sort of hotel in Kumasi for a price which didn’t break his bank account completely off its hinges, or steal their wallets in the night. Delilah murmured and sunk into the upholstery. Caleb hopped off the hood and bent down to pick the balled up sheet of paper from the rusty earth. Surrounded by brush, palm trees and the deepness of the West African night, Caleb sunk to his knees and pushed his elbows and forehead to the ground.
“Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgi-“
A pair of boots crunched along the underbrush. There alone on the side of a deserted road, Caleb paused his prayer and head remaining down, looked to the boots. How had he let himself be so unsafe? The night had captivated him better than a siren song, leaving him on the unprotected side of a city with walls to keep the thieves away. He’d let his lingering mind overcome his good senses, and with Delilah in the passenger seat? Caleb prepared for a fight.
“I’ve never asked you to get on your knees, boy.” Gravel bathed the voice in a wobbling, deep throated pitch. Caleb shut his eyes and put his forehead back on the ground.
“…As we forgive those who trespass against us.” Caleb kept his head down, palms spread on the dirt. The boots shuffled in the dirt, but Caleb wouldn’t watch their descent. He wouldn’t be the shepherd in the night called by a choir angelic singing the Messiah's Scandinavian name left over from an oral tradition. His momentary lapse into fear had broken for the familiar calm of the voice’s parlay.
“And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.”
“I should dub you the God of Piety, but who’m I kidding? You’d give up praying out of spite.” The ground reverberated through Caleb’s fingers as the stranger sat, legs akimbo on the ground beside him.
“Deliver me from evil.” Caleb said.
“Stop that! Sit up unless the she-devil in your passenger seat ate your balls.”
Caleb finished his prayer and dusted off his arms, keeping his knees under him and staring out at the road ahead.
“What do you want, Bragi?”
“That any way to talk to-“
“What do you want?” Caleb spat between clenched teeth, fingers digging into the khaki fabric of his trousers. Bragi grinned behind white teeth, the blackness of his current skin causing a cheshire-grinned frame for the smile in the deep.
“You’re searching in an awful bunch of unsavoury tables to find that mark of your’n. Thought I’d lend a hand.”
“Oh yeah. The storyteller of Asgård helping a Lutheran Priest find the Mark of Cain. Actually that would maybe be good.”
“I know why you’re looking. Not that we don’t admire your verve, but don’t you think the doubt’s taken you past the end of that road?” Bragi pulled a hip flask out of his pocket and unscrewed the cap. The two men sat leaning against the Land Rover, taking swigs and passing the flask between them. Caleb kept quiet. He searched for reassurance that the road Bragi hated was the narrow, less travelled road to the eternal city. The New Jerusalem. Heck of a retirement plan.
“I know who butters my bread.” Caleb said.
“And who ciders your apples?” Bragi grinned. Caleb looked down at the flask. He threw it across the road.
“Fuck! Every damn time!”
“Oy! My wife brewed that batch special! What kind of Scandinavian are you, ditching good hooch!?” Bragi leapt after the flask, dusting it off and sloshing it from side to side. He sighed with a hefty smile and downed the rest.
“Ought to pour the rest down your ungrateful throat, Caleb Modthison. Do you good to outlive a few people.” The Norse god peered into the car, shaking his head at the woman slumbering in the seat.
“Aren’t I going to do that already? All we do is get older, thin out. Has the age brought wisdom?”
“Ask the All-Father.” Bragi crossed his arms over his chest and sat back onto the ground with a thud. Caleb snickered.
“He’d love that. Probably throw another Valhalla Special.”
“Hey. That party lasted twenty six years. Best decades we’d had in a while. I near ran out of material.”
“Sure you did.”
Bragi shrugged. “Easier to make some up. I can’t fabricate this. Where you’re headed, what you’re looking for… it’s no good Caleb. All you’ll find is another empty gong calling you to prostrate yourself in prayer to a God who pays no attention. Come home. There’s room enough for you,
for your Dad. You could both live in comfort, none of this… hiding and running across the great expanses of Midgard. We’re Vikings, the lot. Travel’s never going to be a deterrent.”
“How is it everyone seems to know where I’m going? Can’t a man do something drastic without every supernatural power in the universe getting in the way?”
“We can’t stop loving you.” Bragi tilted his brow as he spoke.
“Come with me to the camp, Bragi. Help me figure this out.”
“And when you don’t get the ending you’ve wanted?”
“I’ll come with you.” Caleb held out his hand. Not quite the devil of Faust’s dealings, Bragi was harsh enough to bring into the circle.
Bragi grinned wide and inviting. He pulled another flask from his pocket and passed it over to Caleb.
“Gonna need your strength.”
“Don’t know if I’d call what I’ve got strength. Determination, maybe. I don’t know.” Caleb said, taking the cap off the bottle.
“Maybe that’s what you need to figure out.”
“Tell me about the mark, Bragi. What’m I missing?” Not that the Aesir of Stories was trustworthy. On a long stretching night a yarn or three could take Caleb’s mind off of one number missing from his equations.
“Once upon a time, the All-Father Odin took in a waif from beyond the mountains. Most of us argue whether Loki was a waif at all. Shape changers, see. They’re a tricky lot and Loki’s the best Trickster of them all, barring Anasazi in these parts. He was both younger and older than Odin. He may have put his own magic into making the world tree and all the worlds grown within its’ branches. Loki grew, and Loki was part of us in Asgård. As most stories about our shenanigans start, it was winter and we were all bored…”
“More mead, brothers!” Thor beat his mug on the long table, arm thrust around his wife’s shoulders. Sif laughed and covered her distended belly - heavy with Thor’s next child. All Asgård was in the Hall, drinking and staving off the unsettling darkness of winter’s dead hours. Baldr, God of Beauty was making merry by challenging the gods to do him harm - as he was invincible. Loki joined the game. He slunk off and found the secret to Frigg’s favourite boy. Mistletoe hadn’t promised to keep Baldr safe from harm. Not like the rest of creation had promised the Lady Frigg. Loki fashioned a dart out of Mistletoe. He gave the dart to Baldr’s blind brother, and waited with his grinning teeth behind a pint of mead. Magni son of Sif and Thor overheard Loki’s sons bickering over who would be the one to throw the deadly dart. Magni, young of years and weak of leg, raced into the Hall.
He thrust himself over the table and sprinted for the invincible God as Hodr’s dart flew out of his hand. A roar of merriment broke through the hall, shattering as Magni reached to catch his uncle's falling body. Baldr died in Magni’s young arms. Loki cackled and leapt onto a table - he’d won the game.
Where was his prize?
Blood spilled. Sif’s belly quaked. Oft children are born to the Aesir not from joy of parents’ love but for glorious and vengeful purpose. As Magni held his uncle’s body, a cold curse of death swept into the boy. He lost his effervescence and his pride. In heaviness, none but Frigg, Baldr’s wife Nanna and Magni would touch the body. His ship became his casket, alight with holy fire. Frigg let her magic carry warmth into her bones. Magni shut his mouth and called on all his inner strength. Nanna couldn’t take the cold. She threw herself on her husband’s pyre. The Aesir quaked. Odin sought Mimir’s head for wisdom to guide them in the death of beauty. Only one phrase the ancient head murmured to the All-Father.
“Out. Send the brothers out.”
Sif cried in labour pains. The gods waited in grief to see what product came from her loins. Would he be a warrior bold, a gentle sorceress, a new beauty? The babe was small and frail, prone to wailing unceasingly.
Still Mimir’s head said,
“Out. Send the brothers out.”
To Magni they gave gifts and provisions. He was taught the ways of signs and magic from his grandparents Odin and Frigg. His brother Modthi was wrapped in tiger-skins from the Vanir, and laid in Magni’s arms. They set the brothers out of Asgård on a ship, Odin’s ravens chasing after. The seed for Magni’s disquiet was planted and the Aesir lost our strength to save us from the newborn’s tempest. Thor tore across the sky, Sif faded to a life of lingering quiet and a stillness fell in the halls.
Ravens cawed. Odin listened for word of his grandsons until the rage and anger grew quiet, and words alone kept heathens at bay in the vault of stars.”
Geckoes skittered, rushing wind in the trees hushed Bragi’s story to a furrowed lull. Caleb pulled his sweater sleeves around his fingers and hunched down in its’ thin wool.
“That… had nothing to do with Cain and Abel. Gee, Bragi. Need me to lend you a Bible?”
Bragi nodded, lips cracking open.
“Those’re the only two brothers you need worry about. Cain and Abel… the primordial murder. Doesn’t matter what scripture the story comes from, it’s the same. Brother against brother isn’t right. Two factions under the same banner can’t fracture without the worst coming out of it. Isn’t that what the story’s about? A mystical mark to protect the primordial murderer from future retribution? It isn’t a mark of freedom, or a curse beyond measure. Cain cursed himself when he took his brother’s life and squeezed it out of Abel’s dying body. Tell me how Baldr’s murder is any different.”
“Hodr didn’t know he was killing Baldr.” Caleb said, rubbing his finger along his jaw.
“Cain did?” Bragi tipped his flask to his mouth. The cinnamon warmth of fresh cooked apples peppered into the dusky night air. Grabbing the flask from Bragi’s hand, Caleb put it to his lips and drank it down. A burst of summer sunshine refracted across his esophagus into his spine. Caleb felt an endearing and motherly warmth soak into his body by inches. It radiated out from the settled liquor in his gut. Idun’s brew held the lifeblood and fire of the Viking gods’ bellies. Without her apple mead the Aesir would have packed it and died centuries ago in fits of bitter, forgetful age. The Aesir were beings of maintenance and constant natural worship. They were the fire, the flood waters, the clouds and the thunder but were not the wind. Neither were they the universe, or its creators. Caleb had always known that worship on a planetary scale was as false as stepping down a precipice looking for Jacob’s Ladder. As he tilted his head back to the vault of stars, Caleb Mauthisen held Idun’s warming ambrosia to his chest.
“Yeah. Cain did. Where’d you get the new face?”
“A loaner from Frigg. She cut a deal with a witch doctor. One fortnight doin’ Asgård’s business.”
“What’s in it for him?” Caleb asked. Bragi nodded to the flask at Caleb’s chest and Caleb held it up to the moonlight.
“The man you’re renting, what’s his name?” Caleb asked.
“Going to look after him for us?”
“He’ll need a hand after you’re done rooting around in his damned brain.”
“Kofi Akya-Hesse. He’s based out of Kumasi.”
“Born on a Friday.” Caleb mumbled, curling up on the ground. Bragi hummed and murmured a song to his grandmother the night sky, listening to the groaning gap which grew in all the Aesir’s minds.
Chapter 9
The morning heat stung Caleb’s eyes and painted sweat to his shirt. A drop rolled down his shoulder and seeped into the brown dust beneath his body. The Land Rover’s door opened and shut. Delilah’s gold-capped boot dug into Caleb’s side.
“Mmmfh. Woman.”
“Adam spared a rib for Eve back in the garden, you can spare one to get off the ground. What’s wrong with you, Caleb? Sleeping on the ground in the middle of Africa? Please. It’s like you delight in lying to me. Why aren’t we in a hotel?”
“Car was cheaper. I was tired. Road’s as fine as any.”
Caleb cracked his neck and rolled onto his side, rubbing a hand on his pants. He grunted and shoved Bragi’s flask deeper into his pocket.
/> “Alone. On the roadside. In Africa.” Delilah droned.
“We used to when we were kids.” He said.
“Don’t.” Delilah pivoted and walked back to the passenger door. She scowled and rubbed her hand over the sweat stain on her midriff.
“I’m not sure you ever were a child. You could have turned on the AC come sun up.”
A rustle in the bush caught Delilah’s breath. Her lips quivered and she reached for the handle of the car door. Bragi popped out of the bushes with a plastic washbasin propped on top of his head.
“Mr. and Madame! I have found the best breakfast for kilometres for our journey! Akwaaba Madame. It is good to see you awake rather than sleeping.” Bragi said, through Kofi’s lips and sunset skin.
“Caleb, whose this?” Delilah’s voice tilted upward with the ambiguity of a woman about to go for her pocket book or gun. Which of the two she’d reach first was still to be seen.
“You remember Kofi, don’t you? Our guide? Kof, tell the Madame Micheva what we’ve got for breakfast, eh?” Caleb dusted himself off and sat on the hood of the Land Rover, patting himself down for a comb or handkerchief. Kofi’s hand retreated into the washbasin and tossed Caleb a packet of wet wipes. He hitched down the washbasin, put his foot on the footwell of the SUV and placed the washbasin on his knee.
“The best produce for you, the best. Mangoes and citrus fruit the jungle provided. Skins, all to help weak european stomachs against our robust foods. Here! Here, a knife for you. Cut the top of the mango and suck out the juice. It is good! Good for you. Here.” Kofi unwrapped a knife from a towel and sliced off the tip of a yellow skinned mango for Delilah. She stared at Kofi as if looking for the key in his mind’s door. His dark eyes were honey-brown and deeper than they ought to be for a man she’d met on the side of the road. Caleb watched with mock-disinterest as Bragi’s flash of magic pulled Delilah’s consciousness into his charade. A flicker crossed Delilah’s face. She spread a warm smile on her face and took a mango in her hand, wiping it with a cloth.
“I’ve got it, thanks. Can’t believe I forgot your name, Kofi. Morning jumbles the mind, as my father used to say.”
Son of Abel (The Judge of Mystics Book 1) Page 8